HAWX

Ubisoft’s 2008 aerial action game is one of the less demanding games in our benchmark suite, particularly for the latest generation of cards. However it’s fairly unique in that it’s one of the few flying games of any kind that comes with a proper benchmark.

Throughout all of our testing it’s HAWX that ends up being the best game for the GTX 580 compared to its predecessor. At 2560 the difference is a staggering 27%, and even at 1920 it’s still 25%. HAWX as far as we know is not huge on FP16 texture filtering, so it may be the biggest benefactor of the Z-culling improvements for GF110.

It actually does well enough here that this is one of the few times even the 5970 can’t keep up; the difference is under 10%, but we wouldn’t normally expect the 580 to surpass AMD’s double-GPU monster.

Metro 2033 Civilization V
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  • donjuancarlos - Tuesday, November 9, 2010 - link

    Along that line it's shoo-in, not shoe-in. :)
  • Ryan Smith - Tuesday, November 9, 2010 - link

    In this house we obey the laws of thermodynamics!

    Thanks for the heads up, Don.
  • Troll Trolling - Tuesday, November 9, 2010 - link

    You guys made my day.
  • samspqr - Tuesday, November 9, 2010 - link

    more important, where it says:

    "Both the Radeon HD 5970 and Radeon HD 6870 CF are worthy competitors to the GTX 580 – they’re faster and in the case of the 6870 CF largely comparable in terms of power/temperature/noise."

    it should say:

    "Both the Radeon HD 5970 and Radeon HD 6870 CF come out on top of the GTX 580 – they’re faster in nearly all benchmarks, and in both cases largely comparable in terms of price, power and temperature; 6870CF is also comparable in terms of noise, while 5970 comes out significantly louder."
  • DominionSeraph - Tuesday, November 9, 2010 - link

    No, it should say, "Both 6850 CF and GTX460 SLI blow everything else out of the water given that they're practically giving away the highly overclockable 6850's for ~$185, 1GB GTX 460's for ~$180 AR, and 768MB GTX 460's for $145 AR."
  • DreamerX5521 - Tuesday, November 9, 2010 - link

    by looking at the test results, I guess 6870CF is a better choice than a single 580 in term of performance/watt, price (about the same), temperature, noise, etc..
  • Kim Leo - Tuesday, November 9, 2010 - link

    I noticed that as well, a little surprising I did expect a bit more considering all the hype, but then again it's built on the Fermi.
    I'm not sure what's up with the pricing? Do they think that there will be a market for GTX480 when Cayman comes and with the GF110 out?
  • Sihastru - Tuesday, November 9, 2010 - link

    If you can live with the sub-par minimum framerates that plagues so many games with CF setups.
  • JarredWalton - Tuesday, November 9, 2010 - link

    Amen. I'm a 5850 CF user (and 4870X2 before that), and I can tell you I'd much rather have a single GPU and forget about profiles and other issues. But then, 30" LCDs need more than a single GPU in most games.
  • B3an - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - link

    30" monitors dont need anything more than a high-end single GPU for most games. 99.9% of PC games are playable maxed out plus AA at 2560 res with just one of my 5870's in use, of with my previous 480. Theres only a handful of games that need dual GPU's to be playable at this res. Mainly because most games are console ports these days.

    And the OP is wrong, 6870 CF is not any better than the 580 with temperature or noise. 580 being better under load with noise, better with temps at idle, but only very slightly hotter under load.

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